News

Local construction employers keen to help develop apprentices and graduates

On the job training and development is on the rise in Northern Ireland as results indicate that 27% of local construction firms employed apprentices at the time of the Employer Attitudes and Motivations to Learning and Training (Wave 15) survey (August – September 2015). Whilst this figure is still under half of those interviewed it is significantly higher than 5% of Professional Services firms who had interns or recent graduates

In terms of general recruitment, employers prefer to employ experienced workers (68%) because they like staff to be up to speed straight away (44%), they specialised in high level skills / consultancy (36%), due to the nature of their business (15%) or because offering training for less experienced staff was deemed too expensive.
 
However 42% of employers also recruit apprentices and 28% recruit returners to the industry, 26% recruit FE colleges leavers, 23% recruit university graduates and 23% recruit school leavers who are not apprentices. This market of new entrants are considered affordable, can grow with the business, are ready to mould and come with new perspectives and ideas.
 
Nine in ten (89%) of recent recruiters rated the skills and attributes of apprentices, interns and graduates as good (46%) or very good (42%)[1]. Of the construction firms that had taken on graduates all rated them as good or very good. The vast majority of those recruiting FE college leavers (90%) rated their skills and attributes as good or very good.
 
Firms that had not recently taken on apprentices, interns and graduates were asked why they had not done so. The main reason for construction employers not taking on apprentices was their not recruiting at all (61%), apprentices not being relevant to the business (14%)
and preferring to recruit experienced staff (13%). However 9% had not recruited apprentices because they struggled to find applicants.